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Latin music night leads to big week on 'Dancing'

David Bauder AP Television Writer

Updated:
05/06/2014 04:34:19 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — A special Latin music night and a health scare for one of the contestants made ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" last week the most-watched episode of an unscripted series on the air this season.

"Dancing" finished with just under 16 million viewers, the Nielsen ratings company said. It ranked behind only CBS' "NCIS" and "The Big Bang Theory," television's most popular drama and comedy, in the weekly rankings. "Dancing" contestant Amy Purdy, a double-amputee and Paralympics athlete, was sent to a hospital following back spasms in the episode that aired last week.

NBC brought Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski onto its Kentucky Derby coverage this year, and the telecast was seen by 15.3 million people. That's down from the 16.2 million who watched last year, although last year's race had the biggest audience since 1989.

NBC's "IHeartRadio Music Awards" was one of the most tweeted-about events on TV last week, but that didn't necessarily make it popular with viewers. It was rated No. 49 for the week, with 5.5 million viewers.

CBS won the week in prime time, averaging 8.8 million viewers. ABC had 6.6 million viewers, NBC had 6.1 million, Fox had 3.9 million, Univision had 2.9 million, the CW had 1.5 million, Telemundo had 1.1 million and ION Television had 1 million.

TNT was the week's most popular cable network with the NBC playoffs, averaging 3.23 million viewers in prime time. USA had 1.95 million, History had 1.76 million, TBS had 1.582 million and Nick at Nite had 1.579 million.

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NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 9 million viewers. ABC's "World News" was second with 8.1 million, and the "CBS Evening News" had 7 million viewers.

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox is owned by 21st Century Fox. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks.

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